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http://www.archive.org/details/vivisectionquestOOhodg 


Reprinted  from  Appletona'  Popular  Science  Monthly 
for  September  and  October,  1896. 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

By   0.   F.   HODGE,   Ph.  D., 

ASSISTANT    PROFESSOR    OF   PHTSIOLOGT,    OLAEK   UNIVERSITY. 

I.— INTRODUCTORY. 

FOR  about  thirty  years  the  vivisection  question  has  been  before 
the  public  in  this  country.  Discussion  has  often  been  hot  and 
bitter,  both  in  the  press  and  in  society,  and  again  it  is  upon  us  in 
exactly  its  old  form.  What  are  we  to  do  with  it  ?  What,  so  far 
as  this  country  is  concerned,  has  the  controversy  accomplished  ? 
After  careful  reading  of  all  the  important  literature  upon  both 
sides,  it  appears  to  me  that  nothing  has  been  gained  either  way. 
Both  sides  are  practically  where  they  were  thirty  years  ago,  and 
the  failure  seems  to  be  due  to  fundamental  misunderstandings  of 
the  real  points  at  issue.  In  several  hundred  antivivisection  pub- 
lications I  am  unable  to  find  a  passage  which  reveals  the  least 
conception  on  the  part  of  their  writers  of  the  real  purpose  which 
a  physiologist  has  in  his  work.  On  the  other  side,  while  definite 
arguments  have  been  advanced,  no  generous  effort  has  been  made 
to  give  the  public  a  clear  notion  of  what  the  physiologist  in  the 
study  of  health  and  the  pathologist  in  the  study  of  disease  are 
driving  at.  Can  something  be  said  which  shall  do  this  ?  Or 
must  physiologists  work  on  under  the  distrust  and  suspicion  of 
society  because  their  aims  and  purposes  are  misunderstood  ? 

The  real  question  at  issue,  moreover,  has  been  buried  under 
personalities  and  under  matters  of  detail,  themselves  involved  in 
bitterest  possible  medical  controversy,  and  the  merits  of  which 
no  amount  of  discussion,  but  time  and  experiment  alone,  can  de- 
termine. Only  by  freeing  the  argument  entirely  from  these 
things,  and  by  placing  it  upon  higher  grounds,  can  we  hope  for 
intelligent  peace  upon  this  contested  field.  What,  then,  is  the  pur- 
pose of  biological  science  ? 

Man  finds  himself  in  company  upon  the  earth  with  an  infinite 
number  of  living  things,  and  he  has  found  it  of  inestimable  value 
to  learn  something  about  this  maze  of  life.    The  science  which 

COPTMGHT,   1896,  BY  D.  APPLBTON  AMD  COMPASTT. 


2  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

has  come  to  embody  this  knowledge  is  now  known  as  biology.  It 
falls  naturally  into  two  great  divisions :  the  study  of  the  form  and 
structure  of  organs  and  organisms — anatomy  or  morphology — and 
the  study  of  the  functions,  of  the  actions,  which  the  organs  per- 
form. This  is  physiology.  Dividing  further,  physiology  falls 
into  the  sciences  of  healthy  action,  physiology  proper,  and  dis- 
eased action,  pathology,  from  Tra^os,  a  suffering.  It  is  evident 
that  for  the  study  of  form  alone  the  dead  body  is  in  general  suffi- 
cient. But  for  the  investigation  of  the  activities  of  health  and 
disease  it  is  as  evident  that  the  physiologist  and  pathologist  re- 
quire vital  action  as  much  as  the  chemist  requires  chemical  action 
or  the  physicist  requires  motion.  It  is  continually  being  urged 
that  the  dead  body  is  sufficient  for  every  scientific  purpose.  As 
well  say  that  the  dead  body  is  as  good  as  a  live  man.  It  would 
be  precisely  as  reasonable  to  agitate  against  driving  live  horses, 
contending  that  dead  ones  will  go  just  as  fast,  as  to  oppose  the 
use  of  live  animals  for  physiological  or  pathological  research. 
And  those  who  make  this  claim  prove  conclusively  that  they  have 
no  conception  of  what  the  word  physiology  means. 

Of  all  physical  Nature  nothing  is  of  greater  importance  or 
touches  man  more  closely  than  just  this  thing,  life.  The  study  of 
form,  anatomy,  is  little  more  than  a  dead  stepping-stone  to  this 
science  of  the  processes  of  life,  physiology.  Young  as  it  is,  no  sci- 
ence has  attained  results  of  greater  value  and  none  gives  brighter 
promise  for  the  future.  In  a  word,  the  faith,  hope,  and  charity 
which  inspire  this  science  are  to  learn  enough  about  the  laws  and 
possibilities  of  living  Nature,  to  do  away  with  all  disease  and 
premature  death,  and  to  make  all  life  as  full  and  perfect  as  these 
laws  will  permit.  This  is  the  inspiration  of  biology.  Is  it  base 
or  unworthy  ?  And  it  is  not  Utopian.  It  is  possible.  The  end 
may  not  be  attained  for  a  hundred  years  or  a  thousand.  That 
depends  upon  how  much  faith  men  have  in  it  and  upon  how  much 
effort  they  are  willing  to  devote  to  it.  But  it  will  come  as  surely 
as  the  world  moves. 

Take  for  a  moment  a  broad  view  of  our  situation  in  this  re- 
spect. Nearly  one  half  of  our  people  are  dying  before  the  age 
of  forty-one,  almost  all  of  disease,  curable  or  preventable,  did  we 
but  know  how.  This  goes  on  with  our  standing  army  of  physi- 
cians, over  one  hundred  thousand  strong,  on  duty  day  and  night. 
It  looks  discouraging,  and  an  eminent  physician  has  himself  said 
that  a  doctor  is  like  a  man  blindfolded,  striking  about  with  a 
club,  almost  as  likely  to  hit  his  patient  as  the  disease.  Our  only 
hope,  therefore,  must  lie  in  more  knowledge  of  the  laws  which 
govern  living  Nature.  Without  this,  as  well  attempt  to  stay  the 
storm  and  tides  of  the  ocean  with  straw  as  the  currents  of  disease 
and  the  course  of  Nature  with  doctors.    If  we  could  get  before  un- 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  3 

prejudiced,  thoughtful  people  some  idea  of  the  magnitude  and 
scope  of  medicine  and  its  importance  to  human  and  to  all  animal 
life,  together  with  some  faint  conception  of  the  moral  forces  im- 
pelling to  the  pursuit  of  those  sciences  which  underlie  medicine, 
in  the  light  of  these  ideas  the  vivisection  question  would  wholly 
disappear. 

More  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  in  the  town  of 
Schaifhausen,  a  German  anatomist  was  engaged  in  studying  the 
anatomy  of  the  human  body.  The  people  loathed  him  as  one  pos- 
sessed of  the  devil.  They  told  him,  in  the  words  of  an  old  super- 
stition, that  the  stain  of  human  blood  he  could  never  wash  from 
his  hands.  His  reply  was,  "  I  can  wash  the  blood  stains  from  my 
hands  with  a  basin  of  water,  but  the  stain  of  ignorance  of  anatomy 
can  not  be  washed  from  the  medical  profession  with  all  the  water 
of  the  Rhine  and  the  ocean."  *  Wepf er  spoke  of  anatomy.  Anat- 
omy must  precede  physiology  and  pathology,  as  the  structure  must 
precede  the  function  it  is  to  perform.  Thus  Anatomy  must  pre- 
pare the  way  for  physiology,  and  to  some  extent  she  has  fulfilled  her 
mission.  But  were  a  Wepf  er  to  arise  now,  he  would  say,  "  The 
stain  of  ignorance  of  physiology  can  not  be  washed  away  with  all 
the  water  of  five  oceans."  I  doubt,  however,  whether  a  modern 
Wepfer  would  lay  the  burden  of  blame  at  the  door  of  the  medical 
profession.  It  is  everyday  talk  that  physicians  must  lower  their 
practice  to  the  ignorance  and  prejudice  of  their  patients.  The 
idea  of  "  magic  "  cures  is  still  too  deeply  rooted  in  the  average 
mind,  and  a  doctor  must  "  dose  "  a  large  proportion  of  his  patients 
to  satisfy  this  craving.  At  no  time  in  the  history  of  medicine  has 
there  been  such  a  craze  for  patent  medicines  as  now,  and  in  no 
country  is  the  situation  so  bad  as  in  our  own.  We  are  the  laugh- 
ingstock of  all  Europe  in  this  regard.  In  Germany  apothecaries 
are  prosecuted  for  advertising  and  selling  American  patent  medi- 
cines. What  hope,  then,  is  there  for  rational  medicine  in  a  coun- 
try that  spends  yearly  hundreds  of  millions  for  worthless  or 
harmful  "  patent  medicines  "  and  quack  doctors,  and  but  a  very 
few  paltry  thousands  for  the  advancement  of  physiology — and 
worse  still,  among  a  people  who  are  as  completely  and  just  as  in- 
telligently satisfied  with  quack  nostrums  as  men  were  in  the  dark 
ages  with  amulets  and  signatures,  the  moss  scraped  from  a  human 
skull,  the  powder  of  dried  toads,  or  the  hair  of  a  saint  ?  f  In  a  na- 
tion of  popular  rule,  the  only  hope  seems  to  lie  in  scientific  educa- 
tion of  the  people.  How  this  is  to  be  attained  is  a  most  difficult 
problem.    The  people  will  not  educate  themsel  ves.    Against  such 


*  Rudolf  Virchow.    Archiv  fiir  pathologische  Anatomie  und  Physiologic,  vol.  clixxv. 
p.  375,  Berlin,  1881. 

f  George  F.  Fort,     History  of  Medical  Economy  during  the  Middle  Ages,  London,  1888. 


4  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

education  are  naturally  trained  all  the  resources  of  quackery, 
whose  trade  would  be  gone.  And  where  free  expression  is  accorded 
to  all  alike,  progress  must  be  made  in  the  teeth  of  ignorance  too 
dense  to  have  any  conception  of  its  own  depth,  and  in  the  face  of 
brawling  charlatanry  and  screaming  fanaticism.  With  nearly 
half  our  people  dying  before  or  about  the  prime  of  life,  this  is  the 
situation.  To  teach  ideas  of  cause  and  effect  with  reference  to 
matters  of  health  and  disease,  to  inspire  at  least  a  willingness  to 
heartily  co-operate  in  efforts  to  control  the  causes  of  disease,  our 
public-school  system  seems  well  adapted.  But  even  here  there  is 
a  serious  tendency  to  hamper  and  restrict  the  proper  teaching  of 
physiology. 

II._VIVISECTION    FROM  THE    STANDPOINT   OF  RELIGION    AND  MORALITY. 

If  vivisection  is  impious,  immoral,  or  demoralizing,  it  must  be 
abandoned  as  a  method  of  research,  and  further  discussion  on 
grounds  of  utility  is  precluded.  Hence  this  aspect  of  the  subject 
must  receive  our  first  attention.  Scarcely  a  paper  appears  against 
the  practice  of  vivisection  which  does  not  contain  solemn  appeals 
to  the  Deity.  These  are  too  sincere  to  be  ignored.  In  fact,  the 
most  active  supporter  of  the  agitation  in  England  would  confine 
the  discussion  wholly  to  these  grounds,  and  invites  us  to  "  leave, 
then,  utility  alone,  and  all  the  weary  controversy  which  hangs 
upon  it."  With  the  help  of  God,  it  (the  national  conscience)  will 
yet  abolish  vivisection.*  A  recent  expression  of  the  American 
Society  is  as  follows : 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  American  Antivivisection  Society, 
believe  vivisection  to  be  morally  wrong ;  to  be  distinctly  opposed 
to  the  intent  of  a  beneficent  Creator,  who  wills  the  happiness  of 
all  his  creatures ;  that  we  should,  as  Christians,  unite  in  every 
effort  for  its  suppression,  and,  as  the  best  weapon  of  the  Christian 
is  prayer.  Resolved,]  etc. 

The  argument  has  been  cast  by  Cardinal  Manning  into  the 
following  syllogism:  Truth  of  Nature  must  be  sought  only  by 
methods  in  harmony  with  the  perfection  of  Nature^s  God.  Mercy 
is  one  of  the  perfections  of  God.  Vivisection  is  not  in  harmony 
with  perfect  mercy.  J  Therefore  truth  must  not  be  sought  by 
vivisection.  How  the  worthy  cardinal  knows  that  vivisection  is 
not  in  harmony  with  God's  perfect  mercy  he  nowhere  explains. 
This  is  the  all-important  question.  If  this  proposition  is  true, 
vivisection  is  impious,  and  must  be  abandoned  immediately,  no 
matter  what  its  value  to  science,  or  utility  to  mankind. 

*  Miss  F.  P.  Cobbe.     A  Charity  and  a  Controversy,  London,  1889,  p.  4. 

f  American  Antivivisection  Society  Report,  1892,  p.  19. 

X  Manning.     Annual  Address,  Victoria  Street  Society,  March  29,  188Y. 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  5 

Clearly  the  only  way  to  find  an  answer  to  this  question  is  to 
go  to  Nature  itself  and  examine  the  principles  upon  which  God 
has  deemed  it  wise  to  order  the  living  population  of  the  world. 

Doing  this,  we  find  living  upon  the  world  at  present  at  least 
272,090  different  species  of  animals,  the  number  of  individuals  in 
each  species  being  beyond  computation  or  expression.  We  also 
know  that  39,925  species,  with  their  countless  numbers  of  indi- 
viduals, have  succumbed  in  the  struggle  for  life  and  become 
extinct.* 

Now,  it  has  been  ordained,  in  the  perfect  mercy  of  God,  that 
each  individual  of  this  innumerable  population  be  born,  live  for  a 
little  time,  and  die.  With  many  species,  birth  itself  is  painful. 
With  all,  life  is  a  continuous  struggle  and  terminates  in  what  is 
commonly  called  "the  agony  of  death."  Few,  at  least  of  the 
higher  animals,  struggle  out  the  full  measure  of  their  days  and 
die  in  peace.  The  vast  majority  are  starved  to  death,  or  famished 
and  scorched  to  death  by  heat  and  drought,  buried  in  the  burning 
debris  of  volcanoes  or  in  snows  and  frozen  to  death,  or  are  beaten 
to  death  by  hail  or  drowned  in  floods.  And  in  and  through  all 
this  is  the  desperate  struggle  to  find  a  grain  of  food,  a  drop  of 
water,  a  little  shelter,  a  foothold  in  the  flood,  a  way  out  of  the 
fiery  hail  or  burning  forest. 

But  harsh  as  is  the  relation  between  animal  life  and  the  phys- 
ical world,  still  more  severe  are  the  relations  of  animals  to  one 
another.  Here  we  see  the  weaker  preyed  on  by  the  stronger 
mercilessly,  and  behold  the  array  of  vivisectional  instruments — 
the  teeth  and  jaws,  the  beaks  and  talons,  the  claws  and  fangs, 
developed  for  this  purpose.  Here  the  animals  that  escape  the 
accidents  of  the  physical  world  perish  most  miserably,  are  lacer- 
ated, torn  limb  from  limb,  are  slowly  crushed  in  serpents'  coils  or 
slowly  swallowed  alive.  And  again  in  all  this  is  the  last,  prob- 
ably of  many,  flight  for  dear  life,  the  last  convulsive  effort  to  tear 
loose  from  the  teeth  or  talons.  Certain  plants,  even,  are  carnivor- 
ous, and  entrap  and  digest  living  animals.  More  than  all  this, 
among  certain  animals,  the  males  tight  to  the  death  for  possession 
of  the  females  of  the  species. 

Still  more  terrible,  many  animals  and  plants  become  parasitic, 
and  suck  from  day  to  day  the  life-blood  of  their  hosts.  Un- 
doubtedly the  greatest  distress  to  which  the  animal  kingdom  is 
subjected  occurs  under  this  head.  Some  of  the  many  diseases 
producing  microbes  become  established  in  the  animal.     The  dis- 


*  Leunis.  Synopsis  der  Thierkunde,  vol.  ii,  p.  1176,  Hanover,  1886.  The  above  is 
merely  the  number  of  species  known  to  Leunis  in  1886,  and  by  no  means  the  entire  number 
inhabiting  the  earth.  Lord  Walsingham  estimates  that  there  are  upward  of  two  million 
species  of  insects  alone.     (Entomological  News,  April,  1890,  p.  58.) 


6  THE  VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

ease  ensues — slow,  loathsome  decay,  sharp,  convulsive  torture,  or 
the  burning  to  death  of  fever. 

All  this  is  going  on  in  the  sea  and  on  the  land  and  has  been 
going  on  for  geological  ages  upon  a  scale  which  baffles  expression 
in  number  or  quantity.  And  this  is  God's  ordering  of  Nature  in 
"perfect  mercy."  With  it  man  has  had  nothing  to  do,  since 
there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  existed  ages  before  he 
appeared  upon  the  scene.  Cardinal  Manning  goes  on  to  tell  us 
that  he  believes  in  Genesis ;  but  there  we  are  told, "  And  God  saw 
everything  that  he  had  made :  and  behold,  it  was  very  good.'' 
According  to  any  estimate  of  the  enormity  of  physical  suffering 
which  I  have  been  able  to  find  among  antivivisection  writers,  the 
God  who  ordained  such  a  scheme  of  Nature  must  be  a  monster 
of  cruelty.  What  is  wrong  with  the  equation  ?  The  Creator  ? 
Nature  ?  Or  the  ideas  of  antivivisectionists  ?  Is  it  not  true  that 
the  religion  of  a  hermit's  hut,  a  lady's  parlor,  or  a  pope's  palace 
is  apt  to  fit  ill  the  problems  of  the  wide  world,  and  that  we  must 
go  to  Nature  to  study  even  religion  ? 

This  travail  of  the  animal  creation  is  the  "  Slough  of  Despond  " 
for  every  philosophy  but  one.  The  biologist  would  agree  with  the 
Creator  in  pronouncing  it  "  very  good."  He  too  has  gained  in 
some  degree  the  divine  point  of  view,  and  can  see  that  out  of  the 
struggle  comes  the  quickening  to  nobler  form  and  higher  life, 
and  that,  without  this,  life  of  any  sort  is  scarce  worth  the  living. 

Few  who  drive  thoroughbreds  ever  pause  to  think  of  the  flee- 
ing for  life,  through  geological  epochs,  the  kicking  and  biting,  the 
hardship  and  training  it  has  cost  to  give  to  the  horse  his  beauty 
and  strength,  since  the  time  when  the  fox- sized  Eohippus  picked 
his  way  among  Eocene  bogs.  So  with  man,  so  with  every  form  of 
life  that  has  attained  any  height  of  development.  The  price  has 
been  great,  but  the  gain  is  priceless  ;  and  we  would  not  give  back, 
if  we  could,  all  the  suffering  the  world  has  felt  and  revert  to  vege- 
tation and  formless  slimes. 

Examining  a  step  further,  is  it  not  possible  to  imagine  a  more 
merciful  dispensation  of  Nature  ?  Suppose  all  the  "  cruel "  car- 
nivora  should  be  exterminated  or  become  vegetarian.  Would 
we  not  then  have  the  animal  millennium  of  certain  sentimental 
people  ?  No,  far  from  it.  The  ensuing  year  would  be  the  most 
dreadful  in  the  experience  of  the  animal  kingdom  upon  the  earth, 
and  would  end  in  death  by  starvation  and  disease  of  many  more 
animals  than  are  now  annually  appropriated  by  the  carnivora. 
But  suppose  all  manner  of  disease  should  be  done  away  with — the 
millennium  of  scientific  medicine ;  the  struggle  for  food  would  be 
only  the  more  terrible,  and  it  is  more  merciful  to  kill  in  a  night, 
even  by  pestilence,  than  in  a  month  by  starvation  and  the  kicks 
and  butts  of  stronger  animals. 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  7 

There  is  what  is  known  as  the  "  balance  of  natural  forces."  It 
is  this  that  keeps  the  planets  balanced  in  their  orbits,  and  among 
animals  it  holds  the  species  within  the  bounds  which  make  for  the 
greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number.  It  is  the  plan  of  an 
all-merciful  Creator,  and  man  has  never  been  able  to  suggest  an 
improvement  upon  it,  within  the  limits  of  physical  conditions. 

From  the  above,  we  see  that  every  animal  life  is  cast  into  the 
world  as  an  experiment,  often  of  the  severest  and  most  painful 
type.  In  this  lifelong  vivisection.  Nature  provides  no  ether  or 
chloroform,  nor  even  chloral  or  morphine. 

By  this  very  dispensation  of  Nature  God  clearly  gives  to  man 
every  sanction  to  cause  any  amount  of  physical  pain  which  he 
may  find  expedient  to  unravel  his  laws.  Not  only  this,  the  situa- 
tion places  upon  man  heavy  duties,  which  he  is  bound  to  perform. 
These  we  will  consider  in  a  moment.  As  far  as  biological  science 
is  concerned  the  whole  argument  may  be  summed  up  as  follows : 
Biology  is  not  an  exact  science  like  mathematics  and  physics. 
These  sciences  are  exact  simply  because  it  is  possible  in  them  to 
obtain  as  many  equations  as  there  are  unknown  quantities  to  be 
determined.  Hence,  with  the  solution  of  all  possible  equations, 
every  unknown  quantity  in  these  sciences  may  be  exactly  deter- 
mined. In  biological  sciences  the  case  is  thus  far  quite  different. 
Here  the  unknown  quantities  are  legion  in  every  equation. 
Hence  the  extreme  difficulty  of  any  solid  advance ;  hence  the 
many  mistakes,  the  many  disagreements.  In  the  best  of  experi- 
ments it  is  only  possible  to  mass  one  series  of  unknown  quanti- 
ties against  another  series  of  unknown  quantities  so  that  they 
balance  as  nearly  as  possible,  and  then  with  our  one  unknown 
quantity,  about  which  the  experiment  turns,  make  the  best  tem- 
porary solution  of  our  problem  possible.  Thus  the  science  must 
be  content  to  proceed  until  the  vast  series  of  unknown  conditions 
which  influence  life  have  been  dealt  with  one  by  one.  Thus,  if 
the  science  is  to  advance,  if  we  are  ever  to  learn  under  what  con- 
ditions life  is  most  favorably  pla.ced,  we  must  vary  the  conditions 
in  every  possible  way — i.  e.,  experiment  physiologically  ;  and,  as 
we  have  seen,  everything  in  the  divine  ordering  of  Nature  is  in 
complete  harmony  with  this  method,  and  bids  man  Godspeed  in 
this  great  work. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  Nature  as  uninfl.uenced  by  the 
presence  of  man.  Let  man,  a  moral  being,  take  his  place  among 
the  animal  creation,  and  at  once  there  spring  up  moral  relations 
between  him  and  every  living  thing  capable  of  feeling  pleasure 
and  pain.  It  becomes  his  duty  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  increase 
the  happiness  and  to  diminish  the  suffering  of  every  sentient 
thing.  But  we  do  not  sympathize  with  the  Hindu  who  lay  down 
before  the  starving  tigress  in  order  to  save  her  life  and  the  life  of 


«  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

her  whelps  with  his  own.  Man's  first  duty  is  to  those  of  his  own 
species.  If  wild  beasts  endanger  the  life  of  his  wife  or  child,  it 
becomes  his  duty  to  kill  them  by  any  means  in  his  power,  let  the 
suffering  be  what  it  must.  This  is  man's  first  step  in  the  con- 
quest of  any  country.  And  .when  he  has  rid  the  earth  of  the 
fierce  carnivora,  it  becomes  his  duty  to  kill  such  numbers  of  the 
herbivora  as  will  enable  the  rest  to  obtain  food  and  enjoy  life. 
This  surplus  man  has  always  utilized  for  food  and  clothing.  All 
this,  however,  is  but  his  first  step.  He  must  tend  herds  and  till 
the  soil  to  support  as  many  as  possible  of  his  own  species.  Even 
then  his  work  is  but  just  begun.  If  disease  threaten  the  life  of 
his  child,  is  his  duty  any  different  ?  Certainly  not.  It  is  as 
much  his  duty  to  exterminate  the  disease  as  to  destroy  the  wild 
beast.  To  subdue  the  earth, "  and  have  dominion  over  .  .  .  every 
living  thing  that  moveth  upon  the  earth,"  was  one  of  God's  first 
and  highest  commands  to  man ;  and  it  includes  microbes  as  well 
as  lions  and  tigers. 

At  just  this  point  we  are  met  with  the  argument  that  there  is 
no  moral  proportion  between  the  amount  of  suffering  caused  by 
vivisection  and  the  advantage  gained.  "  Suppose  it  is  capable  of 
proof,"  says  Lord  Coleridge,*  "  that  by  putting  to  death  with 
hideous  torment  three  thousand  horses  you  could  find  out  the 
real  nature  of  some  feverish  symptom,  I  should  say,  without  the 
least  hesitation,  that  it  would  be  unlawful  to  torture  the  horses." 
Accepting  the  proportion  as  stated,  we  will  have:  Torture  of 
three  thousand  horses  is  to  knowledge  of  real  nature  of  feverish 
symptom  as  power  gained  by  such  knowledge  is  to  prevention  of 
death  annually  from  splenic  fever,  we  will  say,  of  many  millions  of 
cattle,  horses,  and  sheep,  and  thousands  of  men  in  Europe.  There 
is  no  very  exact  "  proportion  "  between  end  and  means,  but  Na- 
ture is  too  generous  to  insist  on  exact  "  proportions "  when  men 
study  her  laws  aright. 

The  difficulty  with  good  people  who  reason  out  this  "propor- 
tion "  is  that  they  fail  to  grasp  the  stupendous  size  of  the  prob- 
lems involved,  the  whole  world  over  and  through  all  time.  France 
alone  is  estimated  to  lose  sheep  to  the  value  of  four  million  dollars 
annually  from  splenic  fever,  and  in  one  district,  Beauce,  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty-seven  thousand  sheep  are  killed  annually  by  it. 
In  Russia,  during  1857,  it  was  reported  that  one  hundred  thou- 
sand horses  perished  from  the  disease.  In  other  epidemics,  the 
losses  within  small  districts  reach  tens  of  thousands,  and  in  one  a 
thousand  people  caught  the  disease  and  perished,  f 


*  Coleridge.     The  Nineteenth  Century  Defenders  of  Vivisection,  p.  8. 
f  R.  M.  Smith.     Therapeutic  Gazette,  November,  1884 ;  and  George  Fleming.     Vivisec- 
tion and  Diseases  of  Animals.     Nineteenth  Century,  1882,  p.  4*70. 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  9 

Or  suppose  it  to  be  a  "  knowledge  of  the  real  nature  of  some 
symptom "  of  one  of  the  fevers  that  are  yearly  causing  in  this 
country  the  premature  death  of  nearly  fifty  thousand  people,* 
and  the  knowledge  gained  saved  the  life  of  but  one,  the  propor- 
tion would  still  stand  approved  in  the  minds  of  all  humane  peo- 
ple. I  am  aware  that  Miss  Cobbe  has  said  in  effect,  Our  days  are 
numbered,  and  I  would  not  have  my  own  or  those  of  my  friends 
spared  or  lengthened  by  the  suffering  of  animals.  This  senti- 
ment is  sanctioned  by  no  code  of  Christian  ethics.  For  all  nor- 
mal, rational,  and  truly  humane  people  the  following  statement 
of  Prof.  Davis  is  true  beyond  danger  of  cavil.  He  says :  "  When 
the  brute's  ordinary  right  to  welfare,  yielding  exemption  from 
inflicted  pain,  confronts  man's  right  to  welfare,  it  (the  welfare  of 
the  brute)  shrinks  to  zero  and  disappears."  f 

In  order  to  test  the  popular  acceptance  of  this  principle,  I 
actually  put  the  following  question  to  twenty  American  women  : 
"  Let  the  suffering  be  any  amount  necessary,  how  many  dogs  and 
cats  do  you  feel  that  you  would  give  to  save  the  life  of  one  human 
being  ? "  Without  exception,  these  women  have  answered,  "  I 
ivould  give  all  the  dogs  and  cats  in  the  world." 

Contrast  with  this  the  following  sentiments  from  the  pen  of  a 
woman  who  is  perhaps  the  most  active  agitatrix  of  antivivisec- 
tion  in  this  country.  She  answers  as  follows :  "  How  many  hu- 
mian  lives  which  you  '  experimenters '  are  so  anxious  (apparently) 
to  prolong  are  really  worth  the  time  and  trouble  ?  .  .  .  Would 
the  world  not  be  benefited  were  they  allowed  to  pass  to  another 
sphere,  where  perhaps  the  conditions  would  be  more  favorable  to 
moral  and  spiritual  advancement  ?"  Such  perversion  of  human 
sentiment  is  little,  if  any,  short  of  the  pathological,  and  calls  for 
no  further  comment. 

Thus  is  seen  the  impossibility  of  separating  morality  from 
utility.  If  the  right  of  the  animal  stand  in  the  way  of  human 
use,  "  it  shrinks  to  zero."  If  one  human  life  can  be  saved,  any 
amount  of  animal  suffering  necessary  is  justified.  With  this 
noble  sentiment  we  thus  accept  the  burden  of  proving  that  the 
sacrifice  of  animal  life  has  brought  us  knowledge  by  which  the 
human  life  has  been  prolonged  and  the  sufferings  of  humanity 
have  been  ameliorated.  With  this  proved,  it  is  clear  that  it  may 
be  as  much  the  moral  and  religious  duty  of  a  man  to  vivisect, 
who  has  faith  that  be  can  advance  the  cause  of  humanity  by  so 
doing,  as  it  is  his  duty  to  preach  or  teach  who  has  equal  faith  in 
these  occupations.    We  shall  treat  the  argument  for  utility  in 


*  Compendium  of  the  Tenth  Annual  Census,  pp.  1708,  1*709. 

f  Prof.  Noah  K.  Davis.     The  Moral  Aspects  of  Vivisection.     North  American  Review, 
1885,  p.  217. 


lo  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

the  succeeding  chapter.  Before  passing  on  to  this  head,  however, 
two  moral  questions,  fundamental  to  the  whole  discussion,  must 
be  carefully  considered. 

An  assumption  found  in  every,  or  almost  every,  antivivisec- 
tion  argument  is  that  vivisection  must  be  demoralizing  to  those 
who  practice  or  witness  it.  Neither  fact  nor  proof  is  adduced. 
From  beginning  to  end  it  is  pure  tissue  of  antivivisection  im- 
agination, like  the  old  assumptions  against  the  first  anatomists. 
The  assumption  is  not  only  unfounded  but  thoroughly  irrational. 
It  would  be  precisely  as  sane  to  assume  that  a  missionary  who 
goes  to  preach  among  the  heathen  tends  to  become  heathenous ; 
or  that  anything  in  the  practice  of  surgery  or  medicine  tends  to 
blunt  the  sensibilities  of  men  in  these  professions.  Granting  that 
there  are  brutal  men  in  the  medical  profession,  as  there  are  in  all 
others,  carries  no  proof  that  their  work  has  made  them  so.  It 
may  have  made  them  decidedly  more  humane  than  they  ever 
would  have  been  without  it. 

On  just  this  point  I  have  taken  the  pains  to  collect  the  testi- 
mony of  experienced  teachers  of  physiology  in  thirteen  institu- 
tions in  this  country,  where  the  greater  part  of  our  vivisectional 
work  is  done.  In  every  case  the  moral  effect  of  experimentation 
is  claimed  to  be  wholesome,  and  in  no  case  have  they  any  evi- 
dence of  its  being  evil.  I  will  quote  from  but  one  instance,  the 
experience  of  a  professor  in  an  institution  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women.  He  writes :  "  In  numerous  cases  students  have 
entered  the  course  with  decided  objections  to  the  practice  of  vivi- 
section ;  and  in  no  case,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  they  left  without 
the  removal  of  their  objections  and  the  substitution  for  them 
of  sound  views  as  to  the  necessity  and  value  of  vivisectional 
work." 

The  other  question  is  one  which  touches  the  bed  rock  of  human 
life :  What  is  the  use  of  living  anyway  ?  It  is  Franklin's  old 
question,  "  What  is  the  use  of  a  baby,  unless  it  is  to  become  a 
man  ?  *'  but  with  the  added  question.  What  is  the  use  of  the 
man  ?  A  good  many  people  every  year  look  their  lives  in  the 
face  in  this  way,  and,  deciding  that  this  life  is  of  no  use  or  worse 
than  no  use,  put  an  end  to  it. 

Furthermore,  What  is,  or  what  may  be,  the  value  of  a  man's 
life  work  ?  And  how  far  have  we  the  moral  right  to  pass  judg- 
ment as  to  the  value  or  use  of  another's  life  or  work  ?  With  the 
earth  reeking  in  carnage  and  with  humanity  and  animate  Nature 
writhing  in  pain,  how  is  it  possible  to  say  that  God  has  ordered 
Nature  wisely  and  mercifully  ?  And  taking  Nature  as  we  find 
it,  what  can  man  do  about  it  ? 

One  theory  has  always  been  that  the  forces  of  Nature  and  life 
are  far  too  vast  for  man's  feeble  powers  to  influence  for  good  or 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  ii 

for  ill ;  that  Ws  chief  duty  lies  in  resignation  to  fate.  Directly- 
opposed  to  this  is  the  spirit  of  modern  science,  which  considers  it 
man's  duty  to  go  to  work  and  manufacture  fate.  What  right,  it 
would  ask,  have  we  to  assume  that  the  forces  of  Nature  are  diffi- 
cult of  control  until  all  the  laws  which  govern  them  are  investi- 
gated ?  Numberless  instances  in  the  history  of  science  prove  that 
his  powerlessness  is  a  mere  bugbear  of  man's  own  imagining.  It 
may  be  so  in  all  cases.  If  man  will  only  put  forth  a  reasonable 
amount  of  effort,  it  may  not  be  so  difficult  to  comply  with  the 
command,  "  Subdue  the  earth." 

Still,  the  old  superstitions  cling  tenaciously  to  the  best  of  men. 
A  child  sickens  and  dies,  and  we  say,  "  It  is  the  will  of  God,  so  let 
it  be."  What  right  has  man  to  lay  this  flattering  unction  to  his 
lazy  soul  ?  The  scientific  spirit  would  say :  "  It  is  the  ignorance 
of  man.  It  is  his  duty  to  learn  enough  about  this  disease  to  pre- 
vent or  cure  it."  In  taking  this  position  science  simply  accepts 
the  universal  principle  that  ignorance  of  law  does  not  exempt 
from  penalty,  and  hence  would  study  the  law  under  which 
the  calamity  occurred  and,  by  obedience,  escape  the  penalty  in 
future. 

To  conclude  in  a  sentence  the  result  of  a  chain  of  reasoning  too 
long  to  even  outline  in  detail,  all  the  suffering  and  physical  evil 
in  living  Nature  finds  ample  justification  for  its  existence  if,  serv- 
ing as  a  spur  to  man,  it  arouses  him  to  use  his  intelligence  and 
put  forth  every  energy  available  to  alleviate  the  misery  of  the 
world  and  improve  its  condition.  In  other  words.  Nature  is  ivisely 
ordered  to  give  man  plenty  to  do,  and  to  do  this  work  is  one  of  his 
highest  duties.  How  he  is  to  accomplish  it,  depends  upon  the 
means  he  finds  at  hand,  which  prove  themselves  useful  to  his 
purposes. 

In  passing  to  a  consideration  of  the  utility  of  scientific  experi- 
mentation, it  must  be  remembered  that  we  are  not  discussing  the 
question  with  infanticides,  murderers,  or  would-be  suicides.  It 
can  be  considered  only  with  those  who  believe  that,  after  moral 
excellence,  human  life  and  happiness  and  freedom  from  disease 
are  the  most  useful  things  in  the  world. 


in.— THE  UTILITY  OF  VIVISECTION. 

ASIDE  from  the  highest  "use  of  science,"  its  satisfaction  of 
•^LX.  man's  intellectual  wants  and  its  influence  upon  his  char- 
acter, science  has  many  "  practical "  values  connected  with  its  de- 
velopment. And  it  is  to  these  "  uses  "  of  physiological  research 
that  we  will  confine  attention,  bearing  in  mind  that  we  are  ad- 
dressing those  who  believe  that,  after  duty,  human  health  and 


12  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

happiness  are  the  highest  values  in  the  world,  and  that  the 
greatest  evils  in  the  world,  after  moral  evil,  are  human  suffering 
caused  by  disease  and  premature  death. 

How  much  "  use  "  humanity  has  for  help  in  these  regards  may 
be  seen  from  a  glance  at  vital  statistics.  "Of  1,000,000  people 
starting  out  in  life,  497,000  will  die,  almost  all  from  disease,  before 
reaching  the  age  of  forty-one."  *  We  are  losing  yearly  in  this 
country  over  302,806  children  under  five  years  of  age.f  There 
certainly  is  no  "  use  "  in  this. 

A  recent  writer  X  has  actually  cited  mortality  statistics  to 
prove  the  futility  of  vivisection.  The  figures  do  show  that  in 
England  since  1850  certain  organic  diseases  have  been  on  the  in- 
crease, despite  the  slight  advance  in  our  knowledge  of  them.  At 
first  blush  this  table  given  by  Leffingwell  strikes  one  as  a  serious 
argument  against  the  utility  of  research.  On  closer  inspection, 
however,  it  only  reveals  the  astute  cunning  of  this  author  in  the 
selection  of  his  diseases.  Almost  without  exception  these  maladies 
lie  very  deep  in  the  hereditary  tendencies  of  the  race,  and  we 
could  not  expect  them  to  be  checked  and  reversed  in  so  short  a 
time.  With  increase  of  wealth  and  advance  in  civilization  the 
chance  that  defectives  may  leave  enfeebled  progeny  is  greatly  in- 
creased, and  that  there  has  not  been  an  even  greater  increase  in 
these  diseases  is  cause  for  congratulation.  But  even  if  the  statis- 
tics would  support  the  significance  Leffingwell  attaches  to  them, 
what  are  we  to  do  about  it  ?  The  only  courageous  course  would 
seem  to  be  to  acknowledge  the  extreme  difficulty  of  the  problems 
involved  and  attack  them  with  redoubled  energy.  Over  two 
thousand  years  of  clinical  observation  and  empiricism  have  prob- 
ably about  exhausted  possibilities  in  these  directions,  so  that  our 
only  hope  would  seem  to  lie  in  experiment ;  and  the  less  prelimi- 
nary experimenting  on  men,  the  better.  If  Leffingwell  had  been 
able  to  prove  from  statistics  that  there  is  no  curable  disease  in  the 
world,  he  would  have  had  a  strong  argument.  As  it  stands,  how- 
ever, it  must  be  acknowledged  to  be  the  strongest  possible  argu- 
ment for  the  side  of  research. 

The  chief  point  of  unfairness  of  the  table  lies  in  Leffingwell's 
selection  of  diseases.  Why  confine  attention  to  statistics  of  or- 
ganic disease  ?  In  acute  diseases,  where  we  would  naturally  look 
for  the  first  fruits  of  scientific  work,  the  gain  has  been  considerable. 

In  support  of  this,  we  may  quote  a  few  passages  from  News- 
holme's  Vital  Statistics.  On  page  273  he  says :  "  If  these  chil- 
dren "  (the  858,878  born  annually  in  England)  "  be  traced  through 


*  Albert  Buck.     A  Treatise  on  Hygiene  and  Public  Health,  vol.  ii,  pp.  328,  329. 

f  Tenth  Census  Compendium,  p.  1707. 

X  Albert  Leffingwell.    Vivisection,  p.  75,  Boston,  Mass.,  1889  (date  of  introduction). 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  13 

life,  the  clianges  in  the  death-rates  occurring  1871-1880,  as  com- 
pared with  1838-1854,  would  result  in  an  addition  of  1,800,047 
years  of  life  shared  among  them ;  and  since  this  number  of  births 
occurs  annually,  it  may  be  reasonably  inferred  that  there  is  an 
annual  addition  of  nearly  2,000,000  years  of  life  to  the  community, 
the  greater  share  in  which  mus  be  ascribed  to  sanitary  meas- 
ures. ...  In  the  decennium  1871-1880,  the  death-rate  from  fever 
fell  from  an  annual  average  of  885  per  million  to  484,  a  decline  of 
forty-five  per  cent"  (page  183).  For  scarlet  fever  the  decline  be- 
tween 1875  and  1885  was  forty-nine  per  cent  (page  185). 

From  tables,  page  101,  we  see  that  the  death-rate  per  1,000  in 
1838-40  was,  for  males,  23*3 ;  in  1887,  only  19*8  ;  for  females,  in 
1838-'40,  22-5  ;  in  1887,  only  17-8. 

From  comparing  death-rates  for  the  ten  years  before  and 
after  1872,  the  year  of  the  passage  of  the  Public  Health  Act,  we 
find  that  "  no  less  than  392,749  persons  who,  under  the  old  regime, 
would  have  died,  were,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  still  living  at  the 
close  of  1881.  .  .  .  Add  to  these  saved  lives  the  avoidance  of  at 
least  four  times  as  many  attacks  of  non-fatal  illness,  and  we  have 
the  total  profits  as  yet  received  from  our  sanitary  expenditure  " 
(p.  127).  "  We  may  add  that  if  the  death-rates  between  1881-1888 
are  included,  the  improvement  becomes  even  more  striking."  Thus : 

Mean  annual  death- 
Record  of  years.  rate  per  1,000. 

Public  Health  Act,  1872.     Ten  years,  1862-'7l 22-6 

Four     "      1872-'75 21-8 

Five     "      1875-'80 20-79 

"        "      1881-'85... 19-30 

1886 19-38 

1887..... 18-79 

1888 17-83* 

For  Boston,  1892 23-3 

"    London,  1887 19*6 

"    Lowell,  Mass.,  1892 26-6 

"    Massachusetts,  1892 20-6f 

We  are  frequently  met  here  by  the  statement  that  improved 
sanitary  measures  nave  nothing  to  do  with  vivisection.  But,  in 
order  to  gain  the  passage  of  costly  sanitary  measures,  sound  rea- 
sons must  be  given  ;  these  are  drawn  almost  wholly  from  the  pure 
sciences  of  physiology  and  hygiene,  and  in  just  those  points  which 
bear  on  public  sanitation  science  owes  much  to  experiment  as  an 
essential  part.  The  truth  of  this  we  shall  see  more  and  more 
clearly  as  we  proceed. 

*  Arthur  Newsholme.     The  Elements  of  Vital  Statistics.     London,  1889. 
f  A  Summary  of  the  Vital  Statistics  of  the  New  England  States  for  the  Year  1892. 
Boston  and  London. 


H 


THE  VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 


The  most  encouraging  feature  in  the  comparison  of  the  new 
with  the  old  tables  of  vital  statistics  is  the  decrease  in  child 
mortality.  '  Newsholme,  page  101,  gives  tables  of  annual  death- 
rates  by  age-groups  from  1838  to  1887.  From  this  we  see  that 
whereas  in  1838-'40,  in  every  thousand  infants  born,  72'6  died 
under  five  years  of  age,  in  1887  only  57'8  were  lost — a  gain  of 
over  twenty  per  cent.  Abbreviating  the  table,  we  have,  per 
thousand  births : 


Age— 

0  to  5  years. 

5  to  10  years. 

10  to  IB  years. 

1838-'40,  died.. 

'72-6 
5'7-8 

^■1 
4-9 

5-3 

1887,  died 

2-9 

A  gain  of 

20-6 

49-5 

45-2 

These  things  give  us  ground  for  courage  and  hope,  but  not  for 
rest — not  as  long  as  diphtheria  is  annually  taking  from  the  homes 
of  this  country  its  49,677  children ;  not  while  fevers  are  yearly 
"  baking  to  death  "  126,332  of  our  people ;  and  while  consumption 
is  causing  years  of  suffering  and  the  loss  annually  to  this  country 
of  102,199  valuable  lives. 

Were  this  wholesale  slaughter  the  work  of  a  national  enemy 
or  of  visible  wild  beasts,  the  public  would  not  be  slow  in  its  ap- 
preciation of  any  attempt  to  meet  the  common  foe.  But  the 
struggle  is  none  the  less  real,  and  the  intelligence  and  often  the 
courage  and  self-sacrifice  required  to  carry  it  on  are  no  whit  less 
than  in  the  struggles  of  a  race  to  subdue  a  savage  continent  or  a 
human  enemy.  With  the  conquest  of  all  the  continental  areas 
assured  to  man,  if  war,  according  to  the  hopes  and  theories  of 
some,  were  a  thing  of  the  past,  the  next  great  step  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  race  must  be  this  conquest  of  the  forces  of  disease. 
A  comparatively  small  branch  of  the  human  race  has  come  to 
face  the  issue  squarely  on  experimental  lines,  and  to  realize  the 
fact  that  success  can  be  achieved  in  no  other  way.  The  fate  of 
the  Hindus  stands  as  a  warning  that  even  an  Aryan  strain  may 
lapse  into  the  abject  imbecility  of  zoolatry  and  mysticism.  The 
race  that  meets  this  stupendous  issue,  that  succeeds  in  giving  to 
men  the  laws  by  observance  of  which  can  be  attained,  not  only 
freedom  from  disease,  but  also  the  development  of  the  highest 
type  of  man,  that  race  alone  can  carry  out  to  its  full  perfection 
the  evolution  of  mankind.  In  course  of  its  development  this 
race  will  be  able  to  bestow  incalculable  benefits  upon  other  races 
and  upon  even  the  animal  species  which  it  finds  useful  to  pre- 
serve. 


THE   VIVISECTION    QUESTION.  15 


IV.— THE   ARGUMENT  AS   TO   THE   UTILITY   OF  VIVISECTION   IN   SPECIAL 

CASES. 

Attempts  to  prove  or  disprove  the  utility  of  vivisection  by- 
special  cases  have  needlessly  complicated  and  embittered  the  dis- 
cussion. Matters  involved  in  the  warmest  medical  controversy 
have  been  freely  introduced,  and  naturally  an  abundance  of  strong 
language  has  been  at  the  disposal  of  either  side.  It  must  there- 
fore be  distinctly  understood  as  we  proceed  that  this  is  not  the 
place  to  settle  medical  controversies  nor  to  write  a  complete  his- 
tory of  useful  medicine.  We  are  to  deal  not  with  medical  con- 
troversy nor  with  medical  history,  but  with  pure  argument — argu- 
ment to  prove  from  special  instances  the  use  to  humanity  of 
vivisectional  methods  of  investigating  the  processes  of  living 
Nature.  This  being  our  purpose,  we  must  leave  to  experts  all 
discussions  of  such  things  as  antitoxine,  hydrophobia  inoculation, 
etc.,  and  confine  our  attention  to  cases  about  which  there  is  the 
least  medical  controversy  and  about  which  people  generally  agree. 
We  will  thus  select  classical  cases,  the  older  the  better,  and  only 
so  many  as  will  serve  to  render  the  argument  clear  and  to  illus- 
trate best  the  methods  of  vivisectional  work. 

The  special  cases  of  Harvey,  Charles  Bell,  Magendie,  and 
Claude  Bernard  have  come  to  be  an  established  feature  in  every 
discussion  of  this  subject,  and  so  many  wrong  impressions  re- 
garding them  remain  uncorrected  that  we  must  consider  their 
work  at  some  length. 

A  knowledge  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  no  intelligent  per- 
son can  deny,  has  been  of  great  practical  value  to  men.  It  affords 
a  foundation  for  all  laws  of  hygiene  and  for  the  practice  of  sur- 
gery and  medicine. 

The  first  great  step  in  the  line  of  this  discovery  was  made  by 
Galen.  "  By  ligating  in  a  living  animal  an  artery  in  two  places, 
and  opening  ihe  vessel  between  the  ligatures,  Galen  demon- 
strated that  the  vessel  contained  blood.  Thus  by  an  experiment 
upon  a  living  animal,  a  vivisection,  the  first  great  source  of  error, 
the  supposition  that  the  arteries  contained  air,  was  removed,  the 
true  nature  of  an  artery  demonstrated,  and  the  modern  theory  of 
the  circulation  made  possible."  * 

Whatever  may  be  the  claims  of  Servetus  and  Csesalpinus, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  one  man  to  unite  the  observa- 
tions of  his  predecessors  into  an  intelligible  whole,  to  found 
his  own  observations  upon  experiment,  in  short,  to  discover  the 

*  H.  C.  Chapman.  History  of  the  Disco verj  of  the  Circulation  of  the  Blood,  p.  12. 
Philadelphia,  1884. 


i6  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

circulation  of  the  blood  as  we  now  understand  it,  was  William 
Harvty.* 

The  claim  is  often  made  that  Harvey  discovered  the  circula- 
tion by  "  thinking,"  by  "  inductive  reasoning,"  and  not  by  vivi- 
sectional  experiment.  As  well  say  that  Columbus  discovered 
America  by  thinking  and  not  by  experiment.  Harvey  not  only 
thought  out  the  circulation,  which  is  a  very  small  matter,  but  he 
demonstrated  it  to  be  a  fact  by  innumerable  experiments  upon 
living  animals,  which  is  a  very  great  m  itter.  Here,  again,  we 
must  emphasize  the  fact  that  Harvey  did  not  study,  and  could 
not  possibly  have  studied,  in  dead  animals  "the  motion  of  the 
heart  and  blood  in  animals."  To  found  his  great  thesis  on  a 
broad  basis  of  experiment,  Harvey  vivisected  a  great  many  kinds 
of  animals,  from  his  own  person  to  "  shrimps,  snails,  and  shell- 
fish." 

Chapter  I  of  Harvey's  great  work,  De  Motu  Cordis  et  Sanguinis 
in  AnimalibuSjf  begins,  "  Cum  multis  vivorum  dissectionibus  (uti 
ad  manum  dabantur)  animum  ad  observandum  primum  appuli 
quo  cordis  motus  usum,"  etc. 

Chapter  II  is  entitled  Ex  vivorum  dissectione,  qualis  sit  cordis 
motus. 

Chapter  III  is  entitled  Arteriarum  motus  qualis  ex  vivorum 
dissectione. 

Chapter  IV  is  entitled  Motus  cordis  et  auricularum  qualis  ex 
vivorum  dissectione. 

The  argument  that  Harvey  was  led  to  his  discovery  by  "  rea- 
soning upon  the  valves  in  the  veins,"  as  stated  by  Boyle,  is  well 
answered  by  his  translator,  Willis,  J  who  points  out  at  some 
length  that  "when  we  turn  to  Harvey  himself,  in  his  works  we 
nowhere  find  that  he  approaches  his  subject  from  the  quarter  now 
particularly  indicated  "  (i.  e.,  from  the  purpose  of  the  valves  in 
the  veins). 


*  Read  J.  H.  Baas.  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Medicine.  New  York,  1889,  pp.  52'7-530. 
Also  Sprengel,  in  his  Geschichte  der  Arzneykunde,  gives  Harvey  the  frontispiece  in  vol.  It, 
and  devotes  forty  pages  (50-89)  to  his  work  of  discovering  the  circulation  of  the  blood. 
Also  Haeser,  Lehrbuch  der  Geschichte  der  Medicin,  vol.  ii,  pp.  252-262,  devotes  eleven 
pages  to  "  Discovery  of  the  Circulation,  Harvey."  And  when  a  man  comes  forward  and  says, 
"  It  is  only  our  insular  pride  which  has  claimed  for  him  the  merit  of  the  discovery,"  he 
brands  himself  as  a  person  with  w'hom  it  is  impossible  to  reason  (as  does  Lawson  Tait, 
TTselessness  of  Vivisection  upon  Animals,  p.  6).  Any  one  desirous  of  investigating  the 
trustworthiness  of  Tait  in  such  matters  can  find  him  fully  discussed,  in  a  way  he  has  not 
been  able  to  answer,  in  the  book  Physiological  Cruelty,  by  "  Philanthropos,"  Appendix  E, 
and  also  in  Heidenhein,  Vivisection,  Leipsic,  1884,  pp.  85  ff. 

f  Harvei  Opera,  1737,  or  The  Motion  of  the  Heart  and  Blood  in  Animals.  Sydenham 
edition,  Lo^ndon,  1847. 

X  Willis.  William  Harvey,  a  History  of  the  Discovery  of  the  Circulation  of  the  Blood. 
London,  1878,  pp.  301  ff. 


THE   VIVISECTION  QUESTION.  17 

Even  Harvey  was  attacked  during  his  life  on  tlie  ground  that 
the  discovery  of  the  circulation  was  of  "no  use"  (Willis,  p.  258), 
"  because  men  still  continued  to  die/' 

For  Harvey  the  blood  passed  through  the  flesh  {per  partium 
porosifates),  and  not  until  the  microscope  was  available  was  it 
possible  for  Malpighi  to  discover  the  capillary  circulation  in 
1661.    This  he  did  in  the  exposed  lung  of  a  living  frog. 

In  recent  years  Claude  Bernard  *  greatly  advanced  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  circulation  by  demonstrating,  wholly  by  vivisectional 
methods,  that  the  flow  of  the  blood  is  regulated  by  a  nervous 
mechanism  continuously  acting  to  contract  or  dilate  the  vessels 
according  to  the  requirements  of  each  organ  or  part  of  the  body. 
Thus  it  is  seen  that  every  important  step  in  the  advance  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  has  been  made  by  vivi- 
section and  could  not  possibly  have  been  made  in  any  other  way. 

Similarly,  the  testimony  of  Sir  Charles  Bell  is  constantly  ad- 
duced to  prove  the  futility  of  vivisection.  Bell  is  the  anatomist 
to  whom,  with  Magendie  and  Johannes  Miiller,  we  owe  the  first 
great  advance  in  the  experimental  study  of  the  nervous  system. 
He  first  demonstrated,  though  in  no  thoroughly  satisfactory 
manner,  the  twofold  function  of  the  spinal  roots.  It  is  true  that 
Bell  did  say  some  things  derogatory  of  physiological  experiment 
about  the  beginning  of  this  century.  But  it  is  also  true  that  his 
actions  speak  louder  than  his  words.  By  reference  to  his  works, 
we  find  that  Bell  made  this  great  discovery  in  the  only  way  pos- 
sible— viz.,  by  means  of  vivisectional  experiments.  He  actually 
vivisected  asses,  kittens,  rabbits,  fowls,  monkeys,  and  dogs,  per- 
forming the  same  experiments  for  which  Magendie  has  been  so 
severely  criticised.!  Charles  Bell  was  exceedingly  sensitive  upon 
the  point  of  causing  pain  to  animals,  as  is  shown  by  several  pas- 
sages in  his  works ;  and  it  is  certainly  a  strong  argument  for  the 
necessity  of  vivisection  that  a  man  of  his  sensitive  nature  should 
be  compelled  to  resort  to  this  method  in  order  to  demonstrate  the 
truth  of  his  theories.  It  must  bo  remembered  that  he  had  no 
anaesthetics,  and  therefore  his  position  can  not  apply  to  the 
present  discussion  of  the  subject.  Were  he  operating  to-day, 
with  chloroform,  ether,  morphine,  chloral,  paraldehyde,  cocaine, 
and  other  anaesthetics  at  his  disposal,  he  need  have  had  no 
twinges  of  conscience  about  the  pain  his  experiments  occasioned. 

Magendie  completed  BelFs  work,  placing  it  upon  a  firm  basis 
by  means  of  experiments  for  which  he  has  been  accused  of  most 
atrocious  cruelty.     It  is  sufficient  to  reply  that  Magendie,  too. 


*  Cl.  Bernard.  Le9ons  sur  le  Diabfite.    Paris,  1877,  p.  43. 

f  Charles  Bell.  Idea  of  a  New  Anatomy  of  the  Brain.     London,  1811.     Transcribed 

by  H.  U.  D.,  1813.  Also,  Nervous  System  of  the  Human  Body.     London,  1830. 
2 


i8  THE    VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

worked  before  ansesthetics  were  discovered,  and  when  people's 
ideas  about  physical  pain  were  very  different  from  our  ideas  at 
present.  And  Magendie  was,  to  say  the  least,  as  oblivions  to  his 
own  suffering  as  he  was  to  that  of  the  animals  he  experimented 
upon.  When  cholera  broke  out  in  France,  in  1832,  he  went  as  a 
volunteer  into  the  center  of  the  afflicted  district,  and  afterward 
served  in  the  great  cholera  hospital,  the  Hotel  Dieu,  during  the 
epidemic  in  Paris,  and  for  his  heroism  received  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  * — "  The  fiend  Magendie.'^ 

Take,  for  example,  another  great  line  of  physiological  work 
than  which  few  discoveries  have  been  of  more  practical  value  to 
human  life.  Upon  a  knowledge  of  the  physiology  of  respiration 
we  build  and  ventilate,  or  ought  to,  at  least,  dwelling  and  school 
houses,  audience  rooms,  and  hospitals. 

The  first  important  discovery  in  this  line  was  made  by  Sir 
Robert  Boyle  (1670),  who  found,  by  the  use  of  his  air  pump,  that 
if  he  deprived  animals  of  air  they  died.  He  vivisected  in  this 
way  kittens,  'birds,  frogs,  fish,  snakes,  and  insects,  f  Boyle  also 
discovered  that  by  keeping  animals  in  a  closed  reservoir  the  air 
became  unfit  to  sustain  life. 

Priestley,  a  century  later  (1772),  continued  Boyle's  experiments 
by  keeping  mice  in  air-tight  receivers  until  the  air  was  vitiated 
and  would  no  longer  support  life.  He  then  tried  to  restore  the 
air  to  its  former  condition :  he  rarefied  and  condensed  it,  heated 
it,  exposed  it  to  water  and  earth,  and  treated  it  in  many  other 
ways,  each  time  testing  it  with  living  mice  to  ascertain  whether 
it  would  again  support  life.  All  this  was  to  no  effect.  In  every 
case  the  mice  died.  Finally,  he  found  that  after  plants  grew  for 
a  while  in  the  vitiated  air,  mice  could  again  live  in  it.  Thus  was 
discovered  the  important  relation  between  animal  and  vegetable 
respiration,  and  we  now  plant  trees  and  lay  out  parks,  and  call 
them  the  "  lungs  of  our  cities."  Two  points  must  be  emphasized 
here :  first,  that  Priestley  could  not  have  done  this  with  dead 
mice ;  and,  second,  that  no  one  except  Lawson  Tait  and  Miss 
Cobbe  would  have  the  hardihood  to  claim  that  he  ought  to  have 
used  live  men  instead  of  live  mice,  on  grounds  of  moral  rights, 
and  from  the  fact  that  the  physiology  of  man  is  "  so  different " 
from  the  physiology  of  the  mouse. 

Turning  to  still  another  important  line  of  scientific  work, 
diseases  of  microbic  origin  are  said  to  cause  four  fifths  of  the 

*  J.  C.  Dalton.  Magendie  as  a  Physiologist.  International  Review,  February,  1880, 
p.  120.  The  story  of  Magendie's  repentance  and  distrust  of  vivisection,  shortly  before  his 
death,  has  often  been  adduced  against  this  method  of  research.  After  careful  search 
through  all  the  accounts  of  Magendie's  life  (thirteen  in  number),  Dalton  is  able  to  say  that 
there  is  no  intimation  of  any  ground  for  this  idea. 

f  Boyle.    Philosophical  Transactions,  vol.  v,  pp.  2011-2065. 


THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION.  19 

sickness  in  the  world.  As  an  example  of  researches  in  this  field, 
we  may  cite  the  classical  work  of  Edward  Jenner.* 

Jenner  began  to  study  in  earnest  the  disease  cowpox,  and  its 
relation  to  smallpox,  in  1775.  For  twenty-one  years  he  patiently 
investigated  the  subject,  and  found  that  no  one  who  had  once 
suffered  an  attack  of  cowpox  was  taken  with  smallpox,  although 
frequently  exposed.  "  Legends  of  the  dairymaids "  had  told  for 
generations  that  an  attack  of  cowpox  conferred  exemption  from 
smallpox  forever  after.  Jenner  might  have  told  the  same 
story ;  but,  if  he  had  not  proved  the  truth  of  his  assertion  by 
experiment,  we  might  still  have  nothing  but  "legends  of  dairy- 
maids" and  no  vaccination. 

In  May  of  1796  Jenner  began  his  experiments.  He  says 
(page  29) :  "The  more  accurately  to  observe  the  progress  of  the 
infection,  I  selected  a  healthy  boy,  about  eight  years  of  age,  for 
the  purpose  of  inoculation  for  the  cowpox."  This  inoculation 
was  followed  by  an  attack  of  the  disease.  But  Jenner  does  not 
stop  here.  Again,  he  says :  "  In  order  to  ascertain  whether  the 
boy  was  secure  from  the  contagion  of  the  smallpox,  he  was  inocu- 
lated the  1st  of  July  following  with  variolous  matter  immediately 
taken  from  a  pustule.  Several  punctures  were  made  in  both 
arms,  and  the  matter  was  carefully  inserted,  but  no  disease 
followed." 

Some  might  have  called  the  discovery  complete  at  this  point, 
but  Jenner  realized  that  one  case  is  not  every  case,  and  that  he 
must  repeat  the  experiment,  which  he  did  scores  of  times,  even 
going  so  far  as  to  endanger  human  life  in  order  to  establish  the 
truth  of  his  discovery.  For  he  goes  on  to  say  (page  41) :  "  To  con- 
vince myself  that  the  variolous  matter  made  use  of  was  in  a  perfect 
state,  I  [at  the  same  time  that  he  inoculated  a  patient  previously 
inoculated  with  cowpox]  inoculated  a  patient  with  some  of  it 
who  had  never  gone  through  the  cowpox,  and  it  produced  the 
smallpox  in  the  usual  regular  manner." 

Previous  to  the  introduction  of  vaccination  in  London  the 
average  annual  death-rate  per  million  from  smallpox  was  (News- 
holme,  table,  page  ]  92) : 

l'728-'5Y 4,260 

IT^I-'SO 5,020 

1801-'10 2,040  beginning  of  Jenner's  work. 

18'72-'82 262 

1885 1,419 

1886 24 

188T 9 


*  Edward  Jenner.     An  Inquiry  into  the  Causes  and  Effects  of  the  Variolas  Vaccinae, 
December  20,  1799.     London,  1801. 


26  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

Germany  now  has  the  most  efficient  laws  of  probably  any 
country  for  making  not  only  vaccination  bnt  repetition  at  stated 
intervals  obligatory.  As  a  result  smallpox  is  rapidly  disappear- 
ing. In  1888  the  deaths  from  smallpox  in  the  entire  empire 
amounted  to  one  hundred  and  ten,  less  than  3'5  per  million,  and 
the  majority  of  these  occurred  on  or  near  the  boundaries  of  other 
countries.  We  can  easily  appreciate  the  usefulness  of  this.  Still, 
during  this  work  Jenner  was  persecuted  and  abused. 

Jenner's  experiments  belong  to  the  class  of  investigations 
which  since  1850  Thiersch  has  made  for  cholera,  Lister  for  in- 
flammation of  wounds,  Pasteur  for  rabies,  Koch  and  Pasteur  for 
splenic  fever,  M.  Freire  for  yellow  fever,  Koch  later  for  cholera, 
and  has  now  begun  to  make  for  consumption. 

Thiersch's  experiments  on  cholera,  which  caused  the  death 
of  fourteen  mice  and  proved  that  cholera  is  communicated 
by  swallowing  particles  of  cholera  discharge,  have  been  an 
important  factor  in  the  sanitary  legislation  of  every  civilized 
country. 

Two  of  the  London  water  companies  experimented  with 
cholera-polluted  water  upon  500,000  people,  causing  the  death  of 
3,476  human  beings  in  1853-'54.  This  is  the  popular  accidental 
experiment  which  antivivisection  writers  tell  us  to  wait  for,  and 
which  they  say  is  sent  by  Providence  to  teach  men  physiology. 
Thiersch  made  the  same  experiment  upon  fifty-six  mice,  the  con- 
ditions being  accurately  determined  and  scientifically  controlled, 
and  with  the  death  of  fourteen  mice  gave  the  world  more  exact 
information  about  the  contagion  of  cholera  than  all  the  cholera 
epidemics  recorded  in  history.  This  is  the  scientific  experiment 
which  we  are  told  should  not  be  made.* 

The  antiseptic  method,  which  we  owe  in  so  great  a  measure  to 
the  vivisectional  experiments  of  Joseph  Lister,  is  past  all  reason- 
able controversy  and  we  may  refer  to  it  here.  It  has  come  to  be 
used  in  hospitals  generally,  and  has  reduced  mortality  from  sur- 
gical operations  to  one  tenth  of  what  it  was  before.  Any  one 
who  has  seen  even  a  few  cases  of  antiseptic  surgery  will  readily 
agree  with  Dr.  Keen  when  he  says :  "  Sir  Joseph  Lister  has  done 
more  to  save  human  life  and  diminish  human  suffering  than  any 
other  man  of  the  last  fifty  years."  \  Still,  Lister  was  obliged  to 
leave  England  to  continue  experiment  in  his  merciful  work  after 
the  passage  of  the  restrictive  law  in  1876. 

In  the  Tubingen  Hospital  died  from  amputation  before  intro- 
duction of  Lister's  method  and  after  : 


*  John  Simon.     Experiments  on  Life.     London,  1881. 

f  W.  W.  Keen.     Our  Debts  to  Vivisection.     Reprint  from  Popular  Science  Monthly,  May, 
1885,  p.  15. 


THE   VIVISECTION  QUESTION.  z\ 

Per  cent.  Per  cent. 

Oflowerlimb 43-5  3-2 

Ofupperlimb 30-6  2-9* 

We  miglit  extend  much  further  the  list  of  useful  discoveries 
which  have  depended  for  some  essential  part  of  their  develop- 
ment upon  vivisectional  experiment ;  but  such  is  not  our  present 
purpose.  The  reader  can  find  these  amply  discussed  elsewhere. 
We  would,  however,  at  this  point  call  special  attention  to  the  way 
in  which  a  discovery  of  this  kind  is  received.  Jenner's  smallpox 
inoculation  was  obliged  to  run  the  same  gantlet  of  popular  and 
professional  favor  and  disfavor  as  Lister's  discovery,  as  Koch's 
and  Pasteur's  are  running  now.  Such  discoveries  are  in  even 
greater  danger  from  ignorant  and  enthusiastic  supporters  than 
from  learned  opponents.  The  problems  involved  are  very  com- 
plicated. Exceptions  of  every  kind  occur — e.  g.,  a  person  may 
have  smallpox  twice,  and  so,  although  vaccination  protects  in 
most  cases,"  it  does  not  in  all;  and,  further,  as  Jenner  himself 
says,  "  inoculation  sometimes  under  the  best  management  proves 
fatal."  t 

In  the  case  of  one  of  these  complications  in  London,  Jenner 
has  himself  left  a  record  in  strong  English  of  the  way  he  felt. 
Writing  to  Moore  in  1811  he  says  :  "  The  town  is  a  fool,  an  idiot, 
and  will  continue  in  this  red-hot,  hissing-hot  state  about  this  af- 
fair until  something  else  starts  up  to  draw  aside  its  attention.  I 
am  determined  to  lock  up  my  brains  and  think  no  more  pro  bono 
publico,  and  I  advise  you,  my  friend,  to  do  the  same,  for  we  are 
sure  to  get  nothing  but  abuse  for  it."  J 

We  are,  however,  discussing  the  utility  of  a  method,  and  while 
we  will  not  introduce  Koch's  treatment  as  an  argument  for  the 
utility  of  vivisection  until  it  has  been  perfected  and  the  medical 
profession  has  reached  a  decision  as  to  its  value,  we  can  hardly 
find  a  better  example  of  the  vivisectional  method.  Koch's  method 
is  that  of  Jenner  perfected  by  using  animals  instead  of  men.  His 
discovery  in  1882  of  the  tubercle  bacillus  has  already  become  of 
inestimable  value  in  directing  sanitary  measures  and  in  recog- 
nizing the  earlier  stages  of  consumption  while  cure  is  possible. 
This,  we  are  told  by  an  anti vivisection  writer,  **'  was  discovered 
by  the  microscope,  not  by  vivisection."*  How  did  Koch  make 
this  discovery  ? 

It  is  true  the  microscope  assisted  as  spectacles  help  to  read. 
But  Koch,  in  the  examination  of  tuberculous  matter,  discovered 
a  number  of  germs  with  the  microscope.    Which  one  of  these 


*  Heidenhaiu.     Die  Vivisection,  p.  34.  f  Jenner,  loc.  cit.,  p.  5Y. 
X  Crookshank,  op.  cit.,  fol.  i,  p.  139. 

*  Ernest  Bell,  M.  A.     Weighed  and  Found  Wanting,  Victoria  St.  Society  publication. 


22  THE  VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

caused  consumption  no  number  of  microscopes  could  tell  him. 
This  had  to  be  settled  by  most  careful  experiments.  There  are 
several  steps  in  the  process.  The  first  is  to  identify  all  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  microbes  found  constantly  in  tuberculous  bodies. 
For  convenience  we  will  call  these  microbes  a,  h,  c,  d.  These  are 
mingled  together.  The  second  step  is  to  cultivate  these  germs  in 
one  test  tube  after  another  until  perfectly  "pure  cultures"  are 
obtained — i.  e.,  nothing  but  a's  in  one,  nothing  but  b's  in  another, 
and  so  on.  Up  to  this  stage  he  has  not  the  least  idea  which  of 
these  is  the  germ  of  consumption.  The  only  way  he  can  deter- 
mine this  point  is  by  experimenting  upon  living  animals.  He 
must  then  inoculate  a  number  of  healthy  animals,  one  with  germ 
a,  another  with  germ  b,  another  with  germ  c,  another  with  germ  d. 
The  four  animals  are  now  watched  carefully.  The  animal  inocu- 
lated with  germ  a,  we  will  say,  sickens  and  dies  with  unmistak- 
able symptoms  of  tuberculosis.  Those  inoculated  with  germs  &, 
c,  and  d  are  not  affected.  He  repeats  the  experiment  several 
times,  and  if  each  time  with  the  same  result  is  justified  in  con- 
cluding that  germ  a  is  the  cause  of  tuberculosis,  while  the  other 
germs  are  harmless. 

This  is  but  the  first  stage  in  the  investigation.  After  the  dis- 
covery of  the  cause  comes  the  question.  How  can  this  cause  be 
controlled  ?  How  can  its  action  be  prevented  ?  Here,  as  Koch 
says,  men  have  begun  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  problem.  Since 
the  beginning  of  medicine  the  doctors  have  been  experimenting 
upon  men  to  find  a  cure  for  consumption.  The  problem  here  is 
too  complicated,  and  in  consequence  little  has  been  learned.  Ex- 
periment must  begin,  he  says,  with  the  bacillus  itself.  We  must 
grow  it  first  in  pure  cultures  in  test  tubes,  in  all  manner  of  differ- 
ent culture  media  and  under  all  conditions  of  temperature  and 
light,  in  order  to  ascertain  under  what  conditions  it  grows  best 
and  under  what  conditions  it  can  not  grow.  We  must  next  sub- 
ject it  in  the  test  tube  to  the  influence  of  different  chemical  sub- 
stances, and  when  some  compound  is  discovered  to  kill  or  hinder 
the  growth  of  the  bacillus  in  the  culture,  then  the  substance  must 
be  tried  upon  tuberculous  animals  to  ascertain  whether  in  their 
bodies  as  in  the  test  tube  it  will  act  to  kill  the  bacilli  without  in- 
juring the  animal.  When  a  substance  fatal  to  the  bacillus  and 
harmless  to  the  animal  is  found,  with  all  due  allowance  for 
differences  between  the  animal  and  man,  it  may  be  tested  on 
man. 

This,  in  brief,  is  but  one  important  line  of  research,  and  clearly 
it  should  be  carried  out  thoroughly  for  every  infectious  disease. 
A  single  link  in  the  chain  of  procedure  requires  absolutely  to  be 
welded  by  experiments  upon  living  animals.  With  millions  on 
millions  of  human  beings  and  animals  suffering  and  dying  yearly 


TEE   VIVISECTION    QUESTION.  23 

for  lack  of  this  knowledge,  no  truly  humane  person  can  for  a  mo- 
ment deny  to  an  investigator  the  right  to  complete  his  work  by 
introducing  this  link. 

In  view  of  the  stupendous  values  involved  it  is  clear  that  any 
amount  necessary  of  animal  or  human  sacrifice  and  suffering  is 
wholly  justified.  Whether  unnecessary  suffering  is  inflicted  is  a 
question  which  only  the  highest  experts  can  adequately  decide. 
Prof.  Bowditch  *  has  so  thoroughly  discussed  the  subject  of  pain 
caused  by  vivisection  that  we  would  pass  it  by  without  mention, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  public  mind  has  been  of  late  so 
much  abused  by  misstatement  and  exaggeration  on  this  head. 
Prof.  Yeo's  estimate,  the  most  reliable  we  have,  is  that  in  every 
one  hundred  experiments  seventy-five  are  "  absolutely  painless," 
twenty  are  as  "  painful  as  vaccination,"  four,  as  "  painful  as  the 
healing  of  a  wound,"  one,  as  "  painful  as  a  surgical  operation." 
The  pain  of  vaccination  is  altogether  trifling,  and  that  of  the 
healing  of  a  wound  after  antiseptic  treatment  is  also  practically 
nil.  This  leaves  but  one  per  cent  of  all  experiments  as  painful  to 
any  serious  degree.  During  over  ten  years'  active  experience  in 
three  laboratories  in  this  country  and  a  number  of  the  leading 
laboratories  abroad,  I  have  never  had  occasion  to  perform  or 
witness  an  experiment  of  this  painful  class.  Discovery  of  new 
anaesthetics  and  more  recent  methods  of  operation  have  doubt- 
less reduced  the  pain  of  experimentation  even  below  Yeo's  esti- 
mate. In  all  laboratories  in  this  country,  and  equally  abroad, 
I  have  always  found  ansesthetics  adequately  and  uniformly  em- 
ployed. 

In  the  recent  discussions  before  the  House  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee of  Massachusetts  upon  the  bill  relating  to  inspection  of 
vivisectional  experiments  in  the  medical  schools  and  universities 
of  the  State,  none  of  the  petitioners  for  the  bill  were  able  to  cite 
a  single  case,  or  the  reasonable  suspicion  of  a  case,  of  abuse 
of  vivisection,  as  having  occurred  within  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, In  order  to  obtain  as  reliable  data  as  possible  upon 
this  point,  I  sent  blank  tables,  arranged  according  to  the  table 
on  page  24,  to  all  the  laboratories  in  Massachusetts  where  vivisec- 
tional experiments  were  likely  to  be  made.  Returns  were  kindly 
sent  in  from  all  the  laboratories,  and  may  safely  be  taken  to 
represent  the  experimental  work  in  the  State  during  the  year 
1894^'95. 


*  H.  P.  Bowditch,     The  Advancement  of  Medicme  by  Research.     Science,  July  24^ 
1896. 


H 


TBI!  VIVISECTION  QUESTION, 


Number 
used. 

Painless. 

PADfPUi  AS 

Animat.. 

Vaccina- 
tion. 

Healing  of 
wound. 

Effect  of 
poison. 

Disease, 

Frogs 

866 

23 

25 

146 

465 

22 

95 

30 

3 

845 
19 
25 
61 

18 

91 

10 

3 

4 

50 
150 

'4 
2 

17 

5 

'4 

2 

Pigeons 

Rats 

... 

Rabbits 

Guinea-pigs 

Cats 

30 
315 

Does 

Mice 

20 

Squirrels 

■ '  * 

Totals 

1,675 

1,0Y2 
(64^) 

204 
(12-2^) 

6 
(0-4^) 

28 
(1-6^) 

365 
(21 -850 

Contrast  with  this  the  34,419  human  beings  who  die  of  disease 
annually  in  Massachusetts. 

A  general  principle  underlying  vivisectional  work  is  also  re- 
vealed in  the  table,  viz.,  that  the  lowest  animal  adequate  for  the 
purposes  of  the  research  be  employed  in  preference  to  one  more 
highly  organized.  This  entirely  negatives  an  assumption  often 
advanced  that  animal  vivisection  tends  toward  human  vivisec- 
tion. The  whole  tendency  of  modern  physiology  has  been  exactly 
the  reverse.  Animals  have  come  to  be  used  in  order  to  save 
human  beings  from  abuse.*  In  the  very  beginning  of  medicine 
every  attempt  to  cure  disease  or  alleviate  suffering  must  have 
been,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  an  act  of  human  vivisection.  A 
large  proportion  of  modern  medicine  at  present  is  equally  in 
essence  nothing  more  nor  less  than  human  vivisection,  and  it  is 
only  gradually,  as  elements  of  experiment  and  uncertainty  are 
eliminated  from  remedial  measures  by  more  exact  knowledge, 
that  the  practice  of  medicine  becomes  anything  more  than  human 
vivisection,  f 

A  further  argument  against  the  utility  of  animal  experimen- 
tation is  based  on  differences  between  animals  and  men,  which 
make  it  unsafe  to  apply  results  directly  from  the  animal  to  man. 
A  logical  error  is  here  involved;  for,  while  there  are  physio- 
logical differences  between  different  animals,  to  one  point  of  dif- 


*  The  recent  action  of  Dr.  J.  S.  Pyle  (A  Plea  for  the  Appropriation  of  Criminals  con- 
demned to  Capital  Punishment  to  the  Experimental  Physiologist,  Canton,  Ohio,  1893),  so 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  is  an  individual  matter,  and  can  not  be  taken  to  repre- 
sent in  the  slightest  degree  the  tendency  of  experimental  medicine  or  the  attitude  of  ex- 
perimental physiologists  in  this  country. 

f  The  Zend-Avesta  permitted  a  doctor  to  practice  his  art  upon  three  heretics.  If  these 
all  died  or  were  made  worse  by  his  treatment,  he  was  forbidden,  on  penalty  of  death,  to  fol- 
low his  profession  further.  If  they  recovered,  he  might  begin  practice  upon  the  faithful. — 
Sprengel.  Geschichte  der  Arzneykunde,  vol.  i,  p.  126.  (Refers  to  Zend-Avesta,  Part  III, 
p.  336.) 


THE   VIVISECTION    QUESTION,  25 

ference  there  are  many  points  of  close  similarity.  A  difference  in 
physiological  function  is  technically  known  as  an  idiosyncrasy. 
These  differences  exist  between  individual  men  as  well  as  be- 
tween different  species  of  animals.  A  man  who  has  had  small- 
pox or  measles  acquires  an  idiosyncrasy  which  protects  him  from 
having  them  again.  In  some  cases  this  difference  exists  from 
birth ;  in  others  it  is  impossible  to  acquire  it.  Man  himself  be- 
gins life  as  a  microscopical  speck  of  living  matter,  and  in  his 
physical  development  passes  through  and  beyond  the  lower  stages 
of  organic  life.  Hence  the  fundamental  physiological  processes 
and  functions  he  has  in  common  with  the  great  body  of  living 
things  beneath  him.  On  this  wider  view  physiological  idiosyn- 
crasy becomes  the  strongest  possible  incentive  to  experiment. 
How  is  it  that  certain  species  have  become  wholly  immune  from 
certain  diseases  ?  With  the  secret  of  this  immunity  discovered, 
it  may  be  easy  to  induce  a  similar  immunity  in  another  species  or 
in  man. 

The  conclusion  which  follows  from  the  foregoing  chapters 
bears  directly  upon  a  topic  of  considerable  present  importance, 
viz.,  that  of  legislative  interference  with  scientific  work.*  With 
due  appreciation  of  scientific  achievements  in  the  past,  we  must 
keep  ever  before  us  the  fact  that  the  hardest  labors  and  richest 
harvests  in  science  are  still  in  the  future.  And  every  considera- 
tion of  religion,  morality,  altruism,  humanity,  and  utility  urge  to 
the  prosecution  of  physiological  education  and  research  with  una- 
bated energy.  Hence  no  legislative  action  should  be  taken  which 
could  possibly  offer  hindrance  or  annoyance  to  either  teachers  or 
investigators. 

In  accordance  with  the  pernicious  principle  that  a  law  can  do 
no  harm  except  to  offenders,  the  English  Parliament,  in  1876, 
passed  an  act  severely  restricting  vivisectional  work.  This  action 
of  England  was  promptly  reversed  by  every  other  European  na- 
tion where  the  subject  was  agitated,  and  by  every  State  Legisla- 
ture in  this  country  to  which  the  matter  has  been  referred. 
Within  the  past  year  this  reversal  has  been  reafiirmed  in  Switzer- 
land and  in  Massachusetts.  The  restrictive  act  in  England  served 
not  in  the  least  to  abate  the  agitation  and  protect  physiologists  in 
their  work,  as  was  intended ;  but,  as  an  eminent  English  physi- 
ologist puts  it,  has  "  only  tended  to  encourage  the  opponents  of 
science  in  their  vexatious  interference."  English  antivivisec- 
tionists  under  this  encouragement  have  shifted  position  from 
restriction  to  total  abolition,  and  have  increased  the  agitation. 
We  have  in  this  country  at  least  three  societies  organized  on  the 
platform  of  total  abolition  of  physiological  experiments.     The 

*  For  fuller  discuseion  of  this  topic  see  Bowditch,  loc.  eit,  pp.  8-16,  and  appendix. 


,26  THE   VIVISECTION   QUESTION. 

legislative  measures  advanced  thus  far  by  these  organizations 
have  been  mild  in  the  main ;  but  while  they  emphasize  before  the 
public  the  fact  that  their  laws  do  not  aim  to  "  prohibit "  experi- 
ments, they  are  also  unguarded  enough  to  speak  of  them  as  "  the 
entering  wedge  for  more  radical  measures  in  the  future/'  *  Clear- 
ly, for  medical  and  scientific  faculties,  for  medical  societies,  and 
for  all  who  have  at  heart  the  advancement  of  humanity  and  sci- 
ence, the  strategic  point  at  which  to  meet  the  enemy  is  the  point 
of  "  the  entering  wedge." 

After  conscientiously  reading  their  literature  for  the  past  five 
years  I  feel  warranted  in  saying  that  science  has  little  to  fear 
from  the  efforts  of  the  antivivisection  societies.  Their  methods 
of  agitation  would  sink  even  a  worthy  cause.  The  real  danger 
lies  with  scientific  men  themselves  who  entertain  ideas  of  con- 
ciliation and  comj)romise  which  will  admit  the  point  of  the  "  en- 
tering wedge."  Prof.  Michael  Foster  has  had  the  benefit  of  twenty 
years'  experience  in  conducting  a  laboratory  under  restrictive 
legislation,  and  his  advice  should  certainly  carry  great  weight. 
He  writes  as  follows :  "  My  earnest  advice "  (to  us  in  America) 
"is  to  straighten  your  backs,  and,  knowing  that  no  legislation  is 
necessary  on  grounds  of  humanity,  and  that  all  legislation  is  bad 
for  science,  strain  every  effort  to  defeat  the  agitation."  f 

*  Antivivisection,  June,  1896,  pp.  9  and  13.     Aurora,  111. 

f  Private  letter  from  Prof.  Foster  to  the  writer,  under  date  of  February  1,  1896. 


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